


Wichita

by orphan_account



Category: Canadian 6 Degrees, The Firm (TV)
Genre: Multi, Partner Swapping, Pre-Canon, Undercover, Witness Protection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2012-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-29 07:45:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's early days for Abby, Mitch, Ray and Tammy in the witness protection program.  They're in Wichita, Claire is an infant, and maybe it's safer if Abby shacks up with Ray and Mitch shacks up with Tammy.  Because...why not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wichita

They’re in Wichita, as it turns out, only for six months.  They’re only just past panicking, nowhere near normal, and Claire is only six months old.  They’re all still crazy enough to maybe think the cover would work better if, as adjacent apartment complex neighbors, Abby and Ray are a couple living upstairs over Mitch and Tammy.

When Mitch questions Abby about the wisdom of the plan, because he’s really not sure about being around Tammy, Tammy is the anti-Abby, and Mitch is afraid the proximity and the situation might lead him into temptation, Abby shrugs and says, “It’s not like you’re a model of fidelity.”  And that wounds Mitch, hurts him so much, because it’s true, but Abby ends up reassuring him, because apparently Abby is really not all that concerned about physical fidelity, these days.  “We’re in this together,” she tells him, “Tammy, you, me and Ray.”  Like it’s okay if he’s with Tammy, and Abby is with Ray, because they’re keeping it in-house.

And Mitch understands what’s going on here; Abby wants her own payback for his indiscretions.  As for Abby, she wants Ray for reasons Mitch can’t even begin to fathom (although there’s a small voice in his head that says _You always knew you were Abby’s rough trade, think how much more she’ll like it with your older, convicted felon brother_.)  And he can’t deny that Tammy’s got a tough-cookie charm of her own.

So for six months in Wichita, Abby and Claire shack up with Ray, and Mitch lives with Tammy, and Tammy smells like cigarettes and even makes a joke out of her smoking, promising him all kinds of things if he’ll just let her have a cigarette after.  He buys a pack of Marlboros every two weeks, just for that.

And, much later, long after Mitch swore to himself he wouldn’t ask, he does anyway, and Abby smiles with fondness and says that Ray was so tender with her, constantly asking permission “for everything,” and she actually liked it “on a limited basis,” because Mitch himself, who has never done time, who can’t read gang tattoos, is kind of pushy and demanding when it comes to sex, he knows this about himself, and Abby has never complained, and Tammy certainly liked him like that.   But apparently his style is more selfish than Ray’s, which both Tammy and Abby assure him has its own rough appeal, but Ray, Ray with the rough edges, the bad-boy older brother whose screw-ups Mitch was always trying to make up for, well, he’s apparently the guy who will give backrubs and spend hours between a woman’s thighs, getting himself off over and over again against the sheets, showing patience and devotion that has never been Mitch’s style.

And the four of them never speak of Wichita again, but some nights, not every night, not even _most_ nights, Mitch goes down on Abby for hours, which he normally would not do, would never have even thought of doing if it hadn’t been for that…brief exchange.  And some days Tammy comes into the office, once they _have_ an office, limping a little, like she had a rough night with a borderline-inconsiderate lover, so Wichita was apparently a learning experience for all of them. 

So, Abby is happy with Mitch, and Tammy and Ray are as happy as they’re ever going to get, but Wichita expanded _everyone’s_ horizons.  And when they come out of hiding, making themselves into a team, maybe the lessons of Wichita, now nearly a decade in the past, make that team work that much, _so much_ , better.  


End file.
